dystopia for young adults

Profit-seeking companies are willing to sacrifice empathy, morality, and health to push their products. We are conditioned to believe we need to buy them, and these days they are a finger-click away. Instant gratification thrives on mindless desire and little reflection of actual need and value. Corporations even infiltrate schools where they know kids will pay to be cool, and many wonder if education is moving from an intellectual to an economic marketplace. Reading dystopian literature can help young adults recognize the manipulation and persuasive techniques aimed at them and perhaps inspire them to make change or take action.

The internet and smart phones are turning us into skimmers instead of careful readers. We are losing our ability to concentrate on sustained mental tasks, resulting in less and less deep thinking. There is so much information on the web that we don't know how to determine and find what's really meaningful. This is all good for the companies who prefer us not to "wake up" and realize what's actually happening. When teens read dystopian literature, they can analyze how technology is controlling and changing society, and they can reflect on the real human impact of this through connecting with fictional characters.

Adolescents are often accused of being politically apathetic, but the popularity of young adult dystopian literature- rife with political concerns- may suggest otherwise. When frightening societal problems are interwoven with common teen issues of identity, romance, and coming-of-age, students may feel a more personal connection to politics and be inspired to step into their roles as future leaders and problem-solvers, like the young women detained in Korea for using the Hunger Games solute to oppose their government.

Dystopian novels introduce older students to problems and human rights violations that don't just occur in fiction. For example, the violence against children in The Hunger Games can be related to national and global hunger, forced labor, child soldiers, and sex trafficking. When it is so challenging to get teenagers to empathize with others whose lives are so far-removed from their own- and they are desensitized to or ignorant of the struggles young people face in other parts of the world- this fiction can raise their awareness and be a springboard for social action projects.